Tribley key in helping Tribe win Relays title

Thursday

Apr 25, 2013 at 1:36 AMApr 25, 2013 at 1:41 AM

PTHS wins Pontiac Relays

Erich Murphy

Matt Tribley hasn’t had too many home meets in his prep career, but the Pontiac senior made the most out of his finale at Williamson Field on Wednesday. Despite being delayed a day, Tribley won two individual events and was part of two winning relays in helping the Indians capture the 41st annual Pontiac Relays. An eight-team field just three years ago was down to three this time. But that didn’t seem to matter too much. Providence Catholic, Mahomet-Seymour and Pontiac were the top three teams a year ago. “The only thing was that some of the scoring might have changed,” PTHS head coach Dave Young said of the low number of teams. “There would have been more competition in the field events and would have taken points away from any one of us.” As it was Pontiac scored 81 points in the field events to take a 22-point lead over Providence and 33-point advantage over Mahomet. Tribley was instrumental in the field events by sweeping the leaps. Tribley won the varsity long jump with a mark of 20 feet, 3 inches. He then claimed the triple jump with a hop, skip and jump of 40-4 1/2. “It’s a great feeling,” Tribley said of winning in his only meet at Williamson Field this season. “Going out with a bang on the only track meet here is a pretty big thing. It was a good way to end our senior year.” All told, the Indians won a combined varsity and frosh-soph eight events in the field. Zac Travis took the shot put with a push of 44-7 1/4. The other five wins were at the frosh-soph level. Andrew Beckman was a double-winner after claiming the triple at 37-11 and clearing 5-6 to win the high jump. Bryan Worby won the long jump with a mark that was better than Tribley’s — 20-9 1/2. Ashton Mays won the shot put (40-9) and Nick Wotton took the pole vault at 14 feet. Mahomet made a move on the track and Providence fell back with the running events. The Bulldogs won seven races while the Celtics managed just one. The Indians had four wins with three coming at the varsity level. The first PTHS victory was in the frosh-soph 4x100 where the foursome of Beckman, Vaughn Hobart, Tommy Alsdorf and Worby won in 44.95 seconds. The varsity 4x100 crew of Wotton, Michael Hones, Humberto Serna and Tribley followed with a win in 43.87 seconds. The same quartet captured the 4x200 in 1:32.32. The middle distance medley team of Zac Justus, Worby, Aaron Metcalf and Shawn Milhauser had a winning time of 8:11.42. “We weren’t sharp in some things and we were sharp in other things,” Young said, adding that it has been some time since the teams were able to compete. “It was big to get a meet in. Every one of these teams needed to get this meet in. Mahomet hasn’t run since (April 14) and Providence has been scrambling to get meets in.” Pontiac will be at Eureka Friday and the Corn Belt Conference meet will be May 3 at Prairie Central. “Everything is coming up fast, it would be awesome (to use this as a springboard),” Tribley said. “We have to push ourselves to the limit.” Depth will be a factor down the line, as well. Pontiac was able to help its cause the Relays by scoring runnerup points six times. There were six third-place finishes in the field events, where each team had two competitors for each event.